


Lying Liars Who Lie

by LeDiz



Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Magic, Peter is a lying liar who lies, Unfinished, forced truth-telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was one thing Peter Parker hated, it was magic. Loki magic was its own brand of infuriating, with lots and lots of after-effects, and this time, Peter's not entirely sure he's coming out unscathed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying Liars Who Lie

Magic. If there was one thing Peter Parker hated above all else, it was definitely – well, actually, it was probably field trips. Or the really evil evil-guys. Or those little bits of dust and grit that always managed to get into the worst possible –

Uh. Magic. Yeah. He definitely hated magic.

There was just no reason to it! No logic, or sense, or – or – or – mathematics! Magic A did not equal magic B. In fact, sometimes it didn’t even equal magic A, either! He could handle it, he figured, if it was just something he didn’t understand. If the magic bad guys just waved their hands in specific ways and said specific pig-latin and that pulled a fire-breathing rabbit out of a hat, every time, then Peter felt he could handle that.

But _no_. We wouldn’t want to be _predictable_ , now, would we?

Loki in particular was irritating, simply because for however dangerous he was, his motivations were usually so… lame. It was really hard to handle a guy who turned every girl in the world into a puppy because he couldn’t get a date to the Asgard prom. Or whatever. You get the idea.

Luckily, Peter wasn’t the one in charge right now. Right now, it was Spidey time, and Spidey could roll with the punches. Even when those punches came in the form of bright golden light heading straight for White Tiger’s back.

“Tiger, _move_!” he yelled, and shot a web to snag her out of the way. He barely had time to make sure she was tumbling back to her feet before Iron Fist was sprinting past, fist charged up and ready to go.

Against a god. He was going to try and punch the guy out. Oh, man.

“Iron Fist –” And that was as far as he got before a giant snake swatted said hero across the room. It then turned on Nova, who flinched, but clenched his fists and got ready.

“You want some of this? Bring it on! I ain’t scared of no snakes!”

Double negatives. Brilliant. Maybe that was Nova’s attempt at outsmarting Loki? Maybe Spidey should give him points for trying. Or at least a little cheer to reassure him he was going in the right direction. ‘Nova, Nova, way to go, confuse a god with yes means no!’

Luckily, Spider-man was saved having to make that call by Powerman launching himself at the snake, grappling it with both arms and heaving it down and into the ground. “Nova! Blast it! Now! I can’t hold it much longer!”

 “I’m on it already, hold your hissy!” he called, and inwardly, Spidey groaned at the bad pun. Mostly because he didn’t know whether he was disgusted at how bad it was, or that he hadn’t said it first.

“Guys, this isn’t working! We need a plan!” Spider-man said, turning back toward Loki as Nova torched the snake back into figment-smoke. “Has anyone figured out what he’s here for, yet?”

“Near as I can tell?” asked White Tiger, as she moved up beside him. “To make us look like idiots.”

“Well, yeah, but aside from that. He’s usually here to make Thor look stupid and we just get in the way,” he pointed out, and White Tiger gave him a look.

“Not always. There was that time he turned you into a pig.”

“Thank you,” he said, “for reminding me of that. It helps.”

“Y’welcome.”

“But jokes aside, even that just proves my point. Loki’s not usually this… openly aggressive,” he said thoughtfully, looking back at the god. Loki was just standing there, holding that weird necklace thingy and smirking at them like he was waiting for something. He’d really come in swinging today – blasting holes in everything and calling for heroes to make themselves known. “It’s not his style. He’s gotta have some kind of… ulterior motive. But _what_?”

Right on time, Iron Fist came staggering up, holding his head and ribs and looking woozy behind the mask. “Sometimes the answers we seek are directly in front of us. Perhaps this time he is here simply for the purpose he has accomplished: to confuse and frustrate.”

Spider-man and White Tiger just stared at him. “Why…?”

“Because that, Spider-man, is what you do to him, and many of your foes,” he pointed out. “What better punishment, when one is feeling particularly petty, than to return your difficulty on the one who caused it?”

“But that’s just lame!” he cried, then stopped and thought about it. He did just get through whining to himself about how Loki was annoying because his motivations were usually kind of pathetic. He groaned. “Okay, okay, fine, but then how do we get rid of him? Walk up and say ‘you got me!’?”

Iron Fist just stared back at him quietly, and White Tiger provided his answer, “Like we’re supposed to know? You’re the team leader! You think of something!”

“As ever, guys, I’m really feeling the love and support,” he said, then looked back at Loki. Creepily enough, Loki was still watching him with that weird smile, even as he casually batted Nova and Power-man around like rag dolls. If his motive was just to put Spider-man off balance, he was seriously succeeding. Spidey felt a bit like he was on a dinghy in the Hudson and Hurricane Loki was fast approaching.

But it still felt wrong. Or, at least, not completely right. Loki being here to mess with him, sure – that was logical. But doing it just by belting his teammates around? Nuh-uh. It was too simple. Too violent. Not nearly tricksy enough.

And what was with the necklace…?

But if he really wanted the other boot to drop, he wasn’t going to get it by just letting Loki do whatever he wanted. And besides, just knowing his motivation wasn’t going to stop him. If they wanted to stop him, they were going to have to actually _stop_ him.

“Okay, guys, we can play psycho-psychologist for Daddy’s boy later. Right now, we need to get out the straightjacket,” he said, and swung around to point at them. “Standard procedure, team. You guys circle around from the back, see if you can pick up Nova and Powerman on the way.”

“And let me guess,” White Tiger said irritably. “In the meantime, you’ll let yourself get beat up and distract him.”

“Well, yeah,” he scoffed. “And then, once you distract him from me, I’ll come from behind and kick his butt.”

And, before they could object, he shot a web and launched up. White Tiger growled, but Iron Fist just smiled and shrugged. “He did say ‘standard procedure’.”

Spider-man swung up into the rafters, where he caught the nearest beam and flipped upside-down where he could meet Loki’s smirk head-on. Still watching. Creepiness factor multiplying by the second. But all things considered, wasn’t Loki’s attention exactly what he wanted right now?

“Okay, O Goat Lord of Mischief,” he called, and flung out both web-shooters, connecting with another railing right over Loki’s head and starting his swing. “Time to quit playing around. You wanna mess with my friends, or you wanna mess with me?”

“Oh, finally. I’m so glad we’re on the same page now,” Loki said as Spider-man kicked out toward him. But rather than dodge or throw out a power-blast or anything expected, Loki waited until Spider-man’s boot was less than three feet from connecting with the helmet horns before leaping up into the air. He did a horizontal spin that even Spider-man was impressed by, holding air as the hero slid beneath him, and then thrust his palm directly against the spider-logo.

Normally, that sort of thing wasn’t enough to push Spider-man out of a proper swing, but, well, for all his magic and trickery, Loki _was_ still an Asgardian. They could pack a punch when they wanted to.

Spider-man hit the floor hard, cement cracking under his shoulders, but even that pain wasn’t enough to hide the bite as something latched onto his chest where Loki had hit him. He jerked up to look, but only had time to watch as that weird necklace thing finished stretching across his chest and then sank through his costume, and from what he could feel, his skin itself.

“Okay. Not sure whether to scream or ask _how is that possible_?!” he demanded, even as his internal Spidey kicked at his brain for not correctly interpreting ‘creepy factor’ as ‘SPIDEY-SENSE-TINGLING-LIKE-MAD-FOR-A-REASON-HERE’. With all of that going on, he only just barely registered Loki touching back down to the ground and calmly dissipating into smoke the second before Iron Fist and White Tiger ripped his head from his shoulders.

Spider-man twisted up and onto his elbows, following his spider-sense to see Loki reappear on the same rafter he had been dangling from only a minute before.

“Well. As fun as this has been, children, I’m afraid I have done all I wanted to accomplish tonight,” he said cheerfully. “And I really do have better places to be than this charming abandoned warehouse.”

“W-wait!” Spider-man yelled, throwing out an arm as if he could stop him. “W-what did you do to me? What was that thing?”

“Oh, just a little trinket I found in Forseti’s collection. I’m sure he doesn’t even know it’s gone. And if he does, well, you’re the one wearing it now, so that’s hardly my problem,” he said, and waggled his fingers in farewell. “Do enjoy. I’ll be seeing you, O ‘Man of Spiders’.”

And with that, he vanished, leaving them all to stare after him, thoroughly beaten and confused.

 

* * *

 

Pulling back the last scanner, Doctor Jeffries shook his head philosophically. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with you. But my machines can only pick up really overt magic. If you want a proper clean bill of health, you’ll have to speak to someone more mystically inclined.”

“Which I can’t get to New York for another three days or so,” Fury said, stepping into the med-bay as Peter started tugging the top half of his costume back on. “So right now, we have to make do with the old standby: how you feeling, kid?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, “Angry, frustrated, depressed I let another bad guy get away, oh, and incredibly freaked out because said bad guy stuck something in my chest that no one knows what it is!”

Fury’s eyebrow rose at the same time both of Jeffries’ lowered. Peter twitched slightly, well aware the outburst was a little overshare when they’d probably just been looking for a ‘fine’ or ‘sore’. But whatever. He was known for his big mouth – had to maintain the reputation.

“So, this Ferrari guy Loki mentioned,” he continued as he hooked the last bit of his costume together. “We know who he is?”

“Forseti,” Fury corrected, and moved over to the computer bay to bring up what looked suspiciously like your standard web search, rather than a SHIELD file. “Norse god of justice and peace. And before today, we assumed he was part of the expanded universe version humans made up to explain Asgardian contact. But if whatever Loki zapped you with came from him, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a few days.”

“Justice and peace?” Peter moved over to stand beside him, scanning the page as he tugged on his gloves. It didn’t have a lot of information – he looked like your standard patron saint of the Viking judicial system, though considering Peter had always thought Viking law and order was limited to ‘don’t raze and pillage your neighbour’s longboat’, that didn’t really say much. “Loki slammed me with the Viking constitution?”

“Could be. And given Loki’s version of justice has previously turned you into a pig and a pint-sized pain in my neck, I’m not taking any chances,” Fury informed him bluntly. “Do me a favour and stay off-duty until I can get someone to take a look at you.”

Peter glanced at him, then looked back down at his chest, as if he could see the necklace that had disappeared inside him. It didn’t feel dangerous, and his spider-sense was just having its usual quiet buzz that it got around Fury, but for all Loki’s quirks, he was way too smart to have hit him with anything that wouldn’t complicate his life somehow. “Much as I hate to say it, Nick, I think this time you might be right. I’m going to ignore your advice completely, but I think you’re right.”

“Damn right I – what did you say?”

Peter blinked, then looked at him. What did he say? Oh, man, did he just admit he was going to ignore him? To his _face_? “Uh…”

“Parker. You are not to continue acting as Spider-man, do you hear me?” snapped Fury. “I know you don’t obey orders, so call this a threat. I hear you’re out playing hero before I clear you for duty, I will come down on you. _Hard_.”

Now, in his head, he made a quick, snappy joke about how Fury’s eye-patch must be affecting his hearing, and then went on to make it perfectly clear how he would play it nice and safe. What actually came out of his mouth was, “You’ll have to catch me first. We both know I don’t give up the hero-act for just anything, and a little thing like my personal well-being definitely isn’t enough for it. I’d really appreciate it if you would just look the other way, but since you won’t, I wish you good luck in trying to pin me down for punishments.”

It shocked them both enough for Fury to stare at him blankly, and Peter to slap his hands over his mouth and stumble backward. Jeffries, on the other hand, hurried forward and grabbed Peter’s arm.

“I think I’ve got it. Spider-man, lie to me.”

“What?” he squeaked, still watching Fury for the inevitable explosion.

“Lie to me! Tell me your name is Tony Stark.”

“My name is Peter Parker,” he said, and then squeaked and slapped his hands over his mouth again. Granted, he wasn’t wearing his mask, and he was pretty sure the entire crew of the tricarrier knew who he was, but not saying his name was kind of an ingrained instinct.

Also, he had actually been trying to say ‘I _wish_ I was Tony Stark!’

“Your age,” Jeffries prodded. “Tell me you’re twenty-three.”

“I – I’ll be twenty-three in six years, give or take a few months,” he said, and then cringed. That time, he’d tried for ‘I’m twenty-three, give or take half a decade’. Wait. No. No, that wasn’t possible. He shoved his hands in his hair and gripped the strands, stumbling back against the examination table. “I – I – I hate brussel sprouts! I like flapjacks! I sleep in blue cotton pyjamas! I only scored eighty-seven on my last History test because I read Mary-Jane’s notes rather than study! _I can’t lie_!”

“Whoa, whoa, okay, calm down, Spider-man – it’s okay,” Jeffries said quickly, but Peter jerked away from him, scrabbling at his chest.

“That’s what this thing did? It’s stopping me from lying? This is bad. This is very, very bad. I want it out! I don’t want to go home like this! I don’t want to tell Aunt May the truth! It’ll severely damage our relationship! Oh come _on_ , I can’t even exaggerate?!” he demanded of his own chest.

“Kid!” Fury snapped. “Calm down!”

“You calm down!” he shouted. “Your life may be wrapped up in your ability to lie to people, but I have an entire two personalities built out of lying! Gah! That was _not_ what I wanted to say!” he cried, and grabbed his head in both hands before crouching down and folding in on himself. “And it didn’t even help my argument!”

“Doc, what’s going on?” Fury demanded, and Jeffries grimaced, pointing to the computer again.

“Forseti, god of justice, peace, and _truth_. It’s just a theory, but my guess is that whatever that thing is that Loki put in Spider-man, it’s stopping him from lying. It’s forcing him to tell the truth, even in simple quirks of language.” He hesitated, then looked down at Peter, furrowing his brow. “Maybe even to the point of not allowing him to lie by omission.”

Peter slowly looked up, horror dawning in a mental image of Nick Fury smirking at him from the horizon. He knew he didn’t have many secrets left from SHIELD and its illustrious leader, but he really, really wanted to keep the ones he did have. Even if he didn’t know what they were.

So far, despite Peter’s mental image, Fury’s actual expression was surprisingly blank. But since when had that meant anything?

In his head, the scene played out much like a road-runner cartoon, where he snatched his mask, leap-frogged Jeffries’ head and dashed out the door with a cheeky quip about how he’d just have to learn how to keep his mouth shut for a few days.

Unfortunately, he opened his mouth before he moved. “That is a terrifying prospect, so I am going to hide like a child in a thunderstorm,” he said, and then snatched his mask, leap-frogged Jeffries’ head, kicked off the doctor’s back and dove out the door like a quarter-back on the goal line. Then he stood up, yanked his mask over his face, glanced back to make sure Fury hadn’t moved yet, and began legging it for the exit.

Back in the medbay, Fury sighed wearily and lifted his communicator. “Team, meet me in the briefing room. You have a new assignment.”

 

* * *

 

“I am so –” Spider-man stopped, his mouth refusing to continue the sentence while his brain struggled to complete the sentence without lying. Boned: not an actual word. Slang for sodomised. Which he was not. Nor was he likely to be. Ughh. Screwed: noun; fastened with a screwdriver. Also slang, but usually for a different form of sex. See previous entry. “…in trouble?” he tried, and then cheered internally. He had successfully completed a sentence as intended!

And with that depressing thought, he slammed his head against the flag pole he was resting on.

He’d been hiding out on top of this building for about twenty minutes, testing his ability to speak. So far, Jeffries seemed to be right: he could swear and say nonsense, like ‘banana’ and ‘shamalama-ding-dong’, but the second he tried to say anything even slightly false, including sing ‘I’m a little tea-pot’, it would switch to being the closest honest-thing he could say.

For the record, the little tea-pot had become ‘I’m a human spider, tall and lean. Here is my webbing, here is my spleen.’

Spider-man had not been impressed by his subconscious quick-rhyming skills. Or its knowledge of anatomy.

He groaned, gently banging his forehead against the metal pole. While he was capable of going home like this—yes, internal lie-detector, he had given up trying to say ‘I can’t go home like this’, thank you—he really didn’t want to risk blurting everything out to Aunt May. And not just the Spider-man thing, though that was pretty big. There was a lot of other stuff he didn’t tell her. Ever. Stuff he didn’t want her to know. Stuff about school, about his friends, about what he thought of her life, about… about Uncle Ben…

But if he didn’t go home, where would he go? MJ? Harry? Oh, man, _Harry_. Just think of all the horrible things being honest with Harry would do.

‘Hi there, best friend o’ mine. You know how you think I’ve been abandoning you because I’m a jerk that’s got new, more obnoxious friends? Well, it’s actually because I’m a super-hero that you kind of hate. Also, you know how you were always jealous of the way your dad treated me, and I acted like I didn’t notice? I did, and I found his attention super creepy, but didn’t want to say anything because I have issues about male mentors, and was kind of deceiving myself into thinking I don’t. Also, he was obsessed with my super-hero side for months. And is now working his way back to it in a different way. Also, I kind of am being a jerk, and do have new, obnoxious friends that I’m pretty sure _are_ trying to distance me from you, but that’s okay, because I’m in denial about that, too. And really, you’re the most important person in my life aside from my Aunt May, so can we please still be best friends?’

“Now that sounds like a horrible time,” he said, and then sobbed, because he missed sarcasm dearly.

“Wow. Just when I thought you couldn’t get any lamer.”

Spider-man turned his head very slowly, just enough to glare sideways at Nova, hovering near the edge of the building with his phone up, obviously filming.

“I thought I’d find you out on the streets, flailing around and trying to make honest jokes while beating some poor bad guy to a pulp. It was going to be the latest hit video on Super-hero Fails! And here you are, making out with a flag pole. head-down, I might add. Have I told you you’re weird, by the way? Today, I mean, not like, ever.”

“Let me make an educated assumption,” he said, because it wasn’t a guess, thank you, built-in lie-detector. “Fury wants you to keep an eye on me so I don’t go blabbing secrets all over town.”

“Yeah.” He flinched as Spider-man webbed and snatched his phone out of his hands, then grinned and set them on his hips, instead. “Well, actually, he wants you to go back to the tricarrier. He says your fragile mental state is a risk to yourself and everyone else. And that we shouldn’t tell you he said that, but man, I just could not pass up the chance to say it. ‘Fragile mental state’! Like you weren’t five seconds from losing it already! Now you’re –”

Spider-man casually webbed his mouth shut, using the other hand to flip through and delete all the video and image files he could find of himself. “As much as I appreciate the concern—” He paused, then frowned, wondering at his ability to say that. Did that mean he really did appreciate their concern? That he really thought they were concerned? Or was the necklace wearing off already? “—SHIELD is the sixth-last place I want to be right now.” Evidently not wearing off. And sixth? Let’s see – home, Harry’s, MJ’s, school, Daily Bugle Communications Tower… yeah, sixth it was. Only just ahead of Flash’s house. Huh.

Nova grunted at him from behind the webbing for a few seconds, then burnt it off and huffed. He rubbed at his mouth and pointed out, “Yeah, well, what you want doesn’t matter here. Can you really not lie right now? Hey, say ‘I’m a purple hippopotamus’!”

Spider-man just glared at him, then turned and started walking toward the other edge of the roof. It was in the wrong direction to… pretty much everywhere… but it wasn’t like he was going to go home anyway. It was away from Nova, and right now, that was what he wanted.

“Look, dude, sorry, I shouldn’t be making fun of you and your fragile mental state,” Nova said as he zipped around in front of him, grinning shamelessly. “But you know Fury’s right, right? You can’t just go wandering around right now. Who knows who you’ll go running your mouth off to? And, um, can I have my phone back?”

“You can,” he said, and made absolutely no move to give it back.

“Cool… so could you hand it over?”

“I could,” he agreed, and chose not to. The difference flew straight over Nova’s head.

“Wait, you’re not going to give it back to me? So you can lie? Dude, you totally had Fury freaking out over nothing! He’s going to kill you!”

Rather than risk trying to lie and having something completely different come out of his mouth, Spider-man just shot a web for the next building over and swung for it. Unfortunately, Nova was one of the few teammates he had that could easily follow.

“Man, you’re being creepy quiet. You’re not going evil or something, are you? Was the lying thing just the first part of your plan? Trick Fury into thinking you’re all vulnerable and then bam! Take us out while we’re acting all worried?” he asked, and flipped over mid-air so he was flying backwards and could watch Spider-man’s mask. “Because seriously, if you are, that is a kicking plan, with just one flaw: we aren’t going to fall for it! I am going to be watching you like a hawk! You won’t have time to be evil because I am going to stick to you like glue!”

“There’s nothing to say hawks watch spiders at all, so your metaphor is flawed, and you’re not attached to me, so the glue one is no good either,” he pointed out. “And I’m not going evil.”

Oh. Nice to know that was true. He thought it was, but getting the confirmation from his subconscious was very reassuring. “I’m also not heading toward becoming Deadpool.” Ah. Even better.

“You sure about that? You definitely have his habit of spouting off random statements down,” Nova said lazily. “So what’s the deal here? Are you stuck on truth mode or what? Because if you’re not and Fury’s making me stick with you for nothing, I am definitely taking that out on you.”

“You can only take me out when I let you,” he said, then winced, because while he’d been trying to say something along those lines, it was supposed to come out a lot snarkier and easier to brush off. Stupid magic necklace thing. “And yes, right now I can only tell the truth, and while I know you’re going to try and abuse that, I’d really appreciate it if you either didn’t, or just left me alone.”

Nova stared at him for a moment, then flipped over again to fly properly, remaining silent as they continued working their way across town. They were heading for Brooklyn, though heck if Spider-man knew what he was going to do when he got there. If he got there. He didn’t know how much web he had left, and he wasn’t going to walk the rest of the way if he ran out.

As the silence stretched, Nova’s lack of mocking drew his attention, and he looked at him cautiously. While he’d recently learned Nova did have a responsible side, the idea of him letting gold like this go just seemed far-fetched.

“So… you have to tell the truth, right? Like, all the time?” Nova asked slowly.

“I can choose to not answer,” he pointed out, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. Seriously. No way Nova would let this go. He considered giving the phone back as good will, but then realised it made blackmail just as easily.

“What if we asked you something crazy, like… who’s your favourite member of the team?”

That was just weird enough that Spider-man missed his next shot, and he yelped, tumbling through the air for a few seconds before he shot another web and caught himself. He slammed into the nearest building and clung there for a few seconds, until he realised there was an office worker on the other side of the glass, staring at him with her coffee halfway to her mouth. He blinked back for a moment, gave her a quick salute, and then hurried away again.

“ _What_?” he asked Nova, who was waiting for him between the next two buildings.

“Who’s your favourite member of the team?”

“I’m not answering that!” he cried, but Nova grinned and darted in to fly as close as he could without interfering with the web-slinging.

“Why not? Are you saying you don’t have one?”

Several possible answers sprang to mind, and his spidey-sense vetoed each one.

‘I didn’t say that’ implied he did have a favourite.

‘I don’t have favourites’ or ‘everyone but you’ were both highly likely to change into which one was his favourite – something he wasn’t even consciously aware of.

‘I’m not getting into this conversation’ was a bald-faced lie because they were already having the conversation.

“Sometimes,” he said finally, “you are last on the list, Nova.”

He blinked, looking hurt for a second, before the whole sentence filtered and he grinned. “Only sometimes? Does that mean sometimes I’m at the top of the list?”

Spider-man just groaned and tried to swing faster.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Powerman showed up, sent by Fury when he realised Nova and Spider-man’s communicators had been in close proximity for close to an hour without stopping movement.

“He figured it wouldn’t be much longer before you killed Nova, and all things considered, he decided that was a bad idea,” Powerman explained, and Nova sputtered.

“He wouldn’t have killed me! I could take him! I can totally take on Spider-man!”

They ignored him, Powerman folding his arms and giving Spider-man a direct look. “I get why you don’t want to stick around the tricarrier. You have that whole secrets thing, and we already broke your trust back when this whole thing started. I get it. But we don’t know how long this thing will stay in your system, and you can’t just stay out on the streets forever.”

Spider-man twitched and set his hands on his hips, rolling his shoulders and trying to look defiant. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Then where were you going?” he asked, and the intended answer of ‘I was going to figure it out once Nova got lost’ didn’t come out.

Instead, he heard himself say, “I was kinda just waiting for someone to find me or my cell phone to ring so I wouldn’t really have a choice about it.” Then he groaned and slapped himself in the head.

Powerman smirked, but was kind enough not to comment on the slip-up. And Nova was too indignant to actually hear what he’d really said.

“I found you! I found you ages ago! You wouldn’t listen to me! How is this different?”

“Because, Bucket-head, while you just want to annoy him, I’m not going anywhere until I know where Spider-man’s headed,” Powerman said bluntly, then looked back at him. “So. Where are we going? Tricarrier or home?”

With another sobbing groan, Spider-man shoved his hands over his face and then over the back of his mask.

“Okay, so honestly?” He quietly told his inner-Spidey to shut up with the obvious. “The tricarrier may be the sixth-last place I _want_ to be, meaning I’d rather be there than home, but practically speaking, going there is a bad idea. I can’t stay shut up in there for a few days. We’ve got school in twelve hours, and while Coulson can cover for me—” Whether he would or not was a whole different matter. He took his principal duties strangely seriously, sometimes. “—I can’t just stop going home. Aunt May might be too busy pretending she doesn’t miss Uncle Ben to be home five nights out of seven—” He also ignored the slightly startled looks on his teammates’ faces. “—but we at least have a shout-through-closed-doors conversation every day. I can get away with not going home one day, but two in a row? No chance.”

“Uh, we, uh,” Powerman floundered for a few seconds, then shook his head and tried again. “But is that okay? I mean, can you really risk going home? What if she asks where you’ve been?”

“Yeah, not to mention all the other holes you can dig for yourself,” Nova pointed out. “I mean, seriously, man, you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder for an hour now and you still didn’t really shut up. Hey, Powerman, did you know Mr Responsibility here has killed _seven_ goldfish? And one of them was by microwaving it!”

“I was six and trying to give it superpowers,” he snapped. Powerman still stared at him blandly, so he threw up his hands to try and change the topic. “Whatever. I can totally pull the moody, sulky teenager and just not talk! It’s even the right time of year for it.”

“What?” they both asked, and Spider-man mentally backpedalled. In the end, he couldn’t find a way to explain that without giving them one of his few secrets from the team, so he just changed tack.

“I’ll just limit myself to grunts and single-word answers and then, when it all blows over, I’ll spend a few days making it up to Aunt May, lying to her about how I’m not depressed and… ugh…”

They were staring at him even more now, so he coughed and pointed out, “Considering the circumstances, I am remarkably mentally stable.” Hah! Take _that_ , insecurities! The inner lie detector even let him say it out loud!

“Uh huh…”

“Yeah, not touching that one,” said Nova.

Spider-man ignored them both. “So, all things considered, I should just go home.”

“I dunno, man,” Powerman said slowly. “I’ve seen you in a bad mood. You don’t just grunt and give single-word answers.”

“On the contrary,” he said, waving a pointed finger at him as he started walking in the general direction of Queens. “You ain’t ever seen me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

He shot out a web, then paused, considering the situation as a whole, then looked over his shoulder at Nova. “But, uh… just to be on the safe side of this whole honesty thing? Nova, maybe you should take off the helmet and tell me all the reasons you think you’re better than me. Just so I can really ‘get into character’.”

The other two exchanged blank looks, but didn’t really have much choice but to follow.

 

* * *

 

It was somehow both useful and supremely irritating that the guys escorted him home, they all changed out of costume, and then gathered in the street outside, so Sam could do as asked.

It had been ten minutes, and pretty soon, someone was going to ask, and Peter wouldn’t have to worry about honesty when he said he was incredibly ticked off.

“— _and_ I’m better looking,” he said, and Luke rubbed his eyes wearily.

“You said that three times.”

“Well, I am,” he pointed out, then went back to Peter. “Now, if we look at you, well, that list is going to be even longer. And since it seems I need to justify how much better looking I am, let’s start with all the things that are wrong with your appearance. I mean, dude. You’re ripped. Like, seriously. And you wear clothes that make you look like a sea-cow. And that’s not a bad comparison with your face. You’re sixteen, how the heck do you still have baby-fat? Just look at those cheeks! And your hair is lame. Have you heard of styling product? Mancare, buddy. It’s simple hygiene.”

“In our next sparring session,” Peter said evenly, “I am going to try and hurt you. I’ll feel bad about it afterward, but I’ll still do it.”

“Then there’s the fact you’re such a nerd. You’re not even a cool nerd, with video games and natural smarts and all. You’re a lame nerd. You _like_ studying! There is something seriously wrong with you! You like studying more than girls. Or, at least, it seems like you do, because how else could you hang around with sex-on-legs-Watson and _not_ want to –”

“Whoa!” Luke just barely caught Peter before his fist connected with Nova’s jaw, then wrapped an arm around his torso and yanked him away. “Too far, dude! Apologise, now!”

“Whoa, whoa, sorry!” Sam held up both hands, grinning nervously. “What, you said you wanted to be ticked off! I’m sorry!”

“Yeah, you know he never would have said that if he was serious, man,” Luke said quickly, still making a point to hold him back. Peter wasn’t struggling, but he was breathing heavily and glaring at Sam like he wanted to take another swing. But eventually, Peter straightened up, and Luke cautiously let him go.

“Mission accomplished,” he ground out, then pointed at Sam savagely. “ _Never_ make cracks like that about my friends.”

“Sorry,” Sam said again, almost sounding it. “I really was just trying to get to you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Whatever,” he snapped, then turned around and started stalking toward the front door. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Hey, Pete!” Sam called, and then again when he didn’t turn around. “Peter! We’re cool, right? I’m sorry.”

Peter paused on the doorstep, glaring at him for another moment, before he sighed and nodded once. “Just don’t do it again.”

And with that, he opened the door and stormed inside, leaving his two teammates behind. He could hear Aunt May in the kitchen, so he made a point of slamming the door and stomping for the stairs.

“Peter?” she called. “Is that you?”

“I’m going to my room,” he snapped, and didn’t wait to see her. After Sam, it was all too easy to channel his mood into grouchy I-am-teenager-hear-me-angst steps.

There was a pause, before Aunt May called, “Peter? Are you alright? You sound upset.”

“I don’t want to upset you,” he said, then winced. That was supposed to be ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, or at least ‘I don’t want to talk to you’. Stupid honesty necklace. Now she was just going to come after him. “Just leave me alone!”

He managed to make it to his room, slam the door, and then lean back against it. Step one complete. Screwed up, adding at least another two steps to make sure she actually did leave him alone, but step one complete nonetheless.

It took Aunt May a whole thirty seconds to knock on the door. “Peter? What’s wrong?”

Oh, where to begin? The necklace, the lies, the team thing, the SHIELD thing, the J. Jonah Jameson thing, the super-hero thing, the Harry thing, the school thing, the – okay, he was gonna stop himself right there.

“Weren’t you cooking dinner?” he snapped back, because that was safer than trying for one of his usual teenager-style objections.

“Dinner can wait, honey. You sound really upset. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I was just talking to Sam and he ticked me off –” He slapped his hands over his mouth to keep himself from finishing with ‘because I asked him to annoy me and he insulted MJ instead’. He waited for the muscles in his jaw to stop trying to move before adding, “Leave me alone.”

“Okay… but are you sure that’s what you want?”

_Wheel of responses!_

‘I’m sure’ – sure to end up ‘not really, but that’s the only way we’re both walking away from this emotionally unscathed’.

‘I just want to go to bed’ – more like, ‘I think sleep is the only way I’m getting through this night with any dignity left’.

‘I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t’ – oh, wow, let’s stop and consider exactly how many ways that could go wrong with an honesty enforcer!

“Alternatively, let’s not,” he grumbled.

“What was that?” When he didn’t answer, Aunt May knocked on the door again. “You know I don’t like it when you do this. Just tell me what’s wrong, okay? Then I’ll… I’ll leave you alone and you can go… listen to music, read a book, whatever you like. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Oh, man, she sounded so… ugh… guilt. So much with the guilt. He pushed off the door and opened it just enough that he could see her worried eyes. Then he let his gaze drop. “Sorry. I don’t mean to upset you. I just… have a lot going on. All the time. And tonight, it’s proved impossible to completely avoid.”

“Oh, Peter,” Aunt May sighed and pushed the door open further, so she could reach through and touch his cheek. “I know it’s tough sometimes, sweetie, but believe me, I know what you’re going through. I promise it will get easier.”

Oh, man. Let it go, let it go, let it go. Keep your mouth _shut_ , Parker.

He looked up from under his eyebrows, and then let her pull him into a hug. “I really am sorry, Aunt May. I…” Oh, come on, he couldn’t even say ‘I just’?! Jeez, truth-necklace-thing, give a guy some slack! “I don’t want to say anything to upset you, and tonight… if I talk, I won’t be able to avoid it.”

“Okay,” she said gently, and then held him at arm’s length. “I’ll leave you alone then. But if you do want to talk about it, I’ll be right downstairs, okay? Do you want dinner?”

God, yes! He was starving!

He hesitated, and she smiled knowingly, then nodded. “How about I leave a bowl in the microwave and you can get it when I’m a bit more engrossed in the TV?”

Best. Aunt. Ever.

“Sure.”

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the morning didn’t go nearly so well. He’d barely gotten dressed, tested his ability with ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ (and gave up after ‘twinkle, twinkle, ball of gas, or whatever else space has.’), and begun debating going to school versus risking a visit to the tricarrier for updates, when a knock on his window made him turn to see Iron Fist peering through the glass.

He hesitated, then opened the window to let him in. “Morning.”

“Indeed it is. I would wish you a good one, but I suspect it would be unappreciated, given the circumstances,” he said, and Peter smiled, shifting his weight back on one hip.

“You could say that. I’m still stuck on honesty mode. I’m thinking it’s not a good idea for me to go to school today, but I’m not sure whether Coulson will let me off the hook.”

Iron Fist paused, then took off his mask and met Peter’s eyes directly. “I believe he has been given little choice in the matter. As I was leaving, Director Fury informed us that we were to keep you from class at all costs, today. It was suggested that at least one of us skip with you, for your protection, while another stayed at school to spread the rumour we forced you to take the day off.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Hasn’t he ever heard of a fake sick day?”

“Putting aside the fact that you have yet to take a legitimate sick day since becoming Spider-man, even when actually sick,” Danny added with a quick sideways glance, “I believe Director Fury was implying that you cannot be trusted to stay away from people.”

“What? Hey! Peter Parker is smart enough to know when not to go shooting his mouth off!” he snapped, but Danny didn’t even blink.

“Yes, but Spider-man is at just as much of a risk. What if you encounter a new enemy, and they ask you who you are?”

He shrugged, folding his arms over his chest. “If I was in the mask? I’d say I’m Spider-man. The only time I confuse who I am is when one life crosses into the other.”

This time, Danny was the one to raise an eyebrow, and Peter winced, running the statement back over in his mind. Way to sound schizophrenic, Parker.

“So what you are saying is, we are a part of Spider-man’s life that impacts on Peter Parker’s,” Danny said, and Peter blinked.

“That’s not what I said.”

“And yet we rarely notice a difference in personality between Spider-man and Peter Parker,” he said. “I assume you think there is one?”

Unfortunately, his spider-sense usually only worked on physical threats. But _common_ sense was telling him all about the trap he’d just waltzed into. Peter narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Something you want to ask, Danny?”

He nodded. “I am sorry to take advantage, but you must admit, it is unusual for you to be honest at even the most serious of moments. I wish to ask you how you feel about our team. I know you were reluctant to take us on, and that you disliked having us join your school. I wish to know if you still feel this way.”

Peter felt his shoulders and eyebrows sag, annoyance and guilt hitting him in equal measures. He knew he wasn’t the only super-hero with emotional issues – heck, he was pretty sure that if you dug down far enough, most super-heroes only took up the mask because of their issues. But he still liked to ignore his own, let alone everyone else’s. The last thing he needed right now was being forced to prop up his team’s emotional baggage without the option of lying through his teeth.

He let his arms fall out of their fold, sighed loudly, and scrubbed at his hair. “Danny, I would really prefer we didn’t talk about this.”

“I apologise. But I would prefer not to let this go.”

“ _Why_? Doesn’t this count as entrapment? This isn’t very honourable, y'know.”

“No, it is not. But there are many things I do with and for my team that I do not count as honourable,” he said, and squared his shoulders. “One of them may be our intrusion on your life as Peter Parker. If this is so, I feel it would be more honourable to know this, and remove myself from the situation, than to continue as I have. However, this would surely ensure my removal from the team, and I would prefer not to risk that on a hunch. As such, I must hear it from you.”

“Why do I get the feeling this is leading up to a big ‘see where lies lead you’ moral?” Peter muttered, and Danny frowned, tilting his head slightly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Talking to myself,” he said, then pushed his hair back and continued, “Okay, truth is: no, I wasn’t thrilled to have you guys forced into my lives—” Really, honesty-necklace? You needed the plural there? “—and yeah, I’ll admit, you do make me act a lot different as Peter Parker than I normally would. Peter Parker is shy, mild-mannered… nice. All the things I try not to be around you guys. And I don’t feel like I can be Peter Parker and your team leader at the same time. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Part of it,” he acknowledged. “It is… gratifying to know that I was not wrong about there being a difference between Peter Parker and Spider-man, in your mind. But you did not say how you felt about us now.”

He smiled, because this was the easy part. “You guys are my team, Danny. My friends, my family. I’m stuck with you as long as I want to keep learning from SHIELD.”

Wait, what?

Danny had stiffened a moment before Peter did, and his expression was quickly becoming hard and defensive. Peter scrambled to recover. “That’s not what I meant to say!”

“No, I imagine not,” he said coldly. “But it is what you meant.”

“Only technically!” he cried. “Come on, Danny, you know that’s not the whole truth, I mean – ‘stuck’, it’s such a specific term. You’re stuck if you can’t leave, it doesn’t mean anything about _wanting_ to be somewhere!”

“No,” he agreed. “And you have yet to say you want to be ‘stuck’ with us.”

“But I totally could say it at any other time! Oh, damn it,” he groaned. “Again, not what I meant to say!”

“Then please allow me to make it simple,” he said. “Answer me this, Peter Parker. Do you want Danny Rand in your life?”

Oh, man. Uh. Hard question. Very hard question. At least right now. Normally, it was easy. ‘Totally’ was always the correct answer in this situation. But he was definitely sure ‘totally’ would not come out of his mouth if he tried. ‘Kind of’ was probably more honest, but he was pretty sure Danny was looking for a yes or no, here.

“You’re my friend, Danny,” he said, and let out an internal sigh of relief that it had come out as intended. “It shouldn’t matter how you became that way; what matters to me is that you _are_.”

Danny continued frowning for a few moments, before he relaxed very slightly, the lines around his mouth fading back into their usual laid-back half-smile. “You are avoiding the question in interesting ways. But that, I suppose, is as fair as it is of me to ask the question at this moment.”

“Not either of our best moments, I’ll admit,” he said, then set his hands on his hips and tilted his head. “Look, Danny… Peter Parker, Spider-man, whoever, I’m a loner by nature. This whole team thing doesn’t come easy. _Friends_ don’t come easy. But I’m trying, okay? And since you’ve decided to stay with SHIELD for another year, I’m happy enough to have you around that long.” Uh… not exactly what he’d intended to say, but sure. “So what do you say? Friends?”

Danny hesitated, then smiled and extended his hand, which Peter gratefully took to shake. He released it as soon as Danny loosened his grip, though, and quickly turned away, lacing his fingers behind his neck. “Okay, relationships severely tested by this honesty thing: two and counting.”

“Two?” Danny repeated. “Did something happen with Luke or Sam last night?”

“Egh. Sam and I got in a disagreement after I asked for something I shouldn’t have. I was talking about Aunt May. I’m pretty sure she brushed it off as a school problem or something, but I upset her all the same.” He frowned at his dresser. “I hate doing that.”

Danny moved over and set a hand on his shoulder, gently turning him around. “Understandably, but while I do not condone lying as a matter of principle, even I acknowledge there are some lies that make our lives easier. To be stripped of them is a difficult burden, and one I do not feel you are well suited for.”

“Uhh… I don’t know whether that was supposed to be comforting or insulting,” he said awkwardly, but Danny just smiled and squeezed his shoulder.

“It was a statement of fact. Now, my friend. Have you decided what you will do with the day?”

 

* * *

 

Somehow, it wasn’t all that surprising to discover Ava had been the one to stay at school and spread the rumour he was skipping, though Sam did surprisingly point out that they were going out of their way to say Peter was being blackmailed into it.

Less comforting was Luke’s statement that originally Danny was supposed to join them in skipping, but had changed his mind after his discussion with Peter.

“What did you say to him, anyway?” he asked, as they headed down into the subway. “He sounded…”

“Not-zen?” Peter suggested, and he nodded.

“Yeah. Or as close as Danny ever does, anyway.”

“I’d rather he told you, if anyone does,” he replied, and Luke made a face at him.

“Dude, how do you do that?”

“What?”

“You know what.”

He raised an eyebrow, but was saved having to point out the obvious by Sam tackling him around the shoulders and dragging him off-balance. “So dudes! We have a SHIELD-sanctioned day off from both school and heroics! What are we doing?”

“Well, I’ve already had  three messages from Fury and Coulson telling me the jets are off-limits,” Peter said, glancing at his invisible communicator as they swiped through the turnstiles. “We could always steal one and head back to Sandman’s island.”

“Nah, that place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Luke pointed out. “And right now, I think Fury wouldn’t just settle for kicking our _butts_ if we let you out of New York.”

Peter smirked, not wanting to risk a response when the first thing to come to mind was sarcasm, but really, he was kind of relieved. He knew Loki had to be around here somewhere, watching and waiting for his little prank to blow up in Peter’s face, and he wanted to be ready for him. That was why he had the costume on under his clothes, gloves and mask carefully tucked around his hips and ready for a quick change. Suiting up wasn’t going to be fast if he was down to his shorts on a tropical island.

“Well, there’s always the old standby of video games,” Sam said slowly, working his way up to excitement as he thought the idea out. “There’s this arcade that’s just opened up. Two stories, six hundred screens, all action, and best of all, at this time of day, there’d be no kids! Yeah! Let’s do that!”

“Video games? Are you serious?” Luke demanded. “I will never understand it.”

“What’s to understand?” asked Peter. “They’re games. You play them. It’s fun.”

“You spend the better part of your life swinging around rooftops and saving the world—”

“Usually just New York, and occasionally New Jersey, except on what I consider to be special occasions.”

“—and you, Sam, you used to live in outer space, fighting what was pretty close to a rebellion against an evil dictatorship that rules the galaxy! What do video games honestly have that you don’t?”

Peter and Sam just stared at him for a long moment, then glanced at each other before turning back.

“Well, I can’t fly.”

“I don’t get to rescue princesses.”

“I’m not in space right now.”

“I don’t have an uber cool sword.”

“And most importantly, when I get a game over in real life, there’s no extra life,” Peter finished. “Or cheat codes, which would really come in handy sometimes.”

“Besides, video games are just fun, Luke,” Sam said, glancing up as the train pulled in. “You know, kick back, turn your brain off, enjoy, fun! Come on, we’ll show you!”

He didn’t look convinced. “I dunno, guys. Sitting around staring at a screen isn’t my idea of a good time.”

“Okay, so we won’t play any sit-down games,” suggested Peter. “Sam, does this place have laser tag?”

“Only like, the best field in the city! That’s an awesome idea! Luke, man, you are going to love it.”

They headed onto the train, but a very quiet tingling at the back of his brain made Peter pause and glance around the platform, scanning the faces for black hair, green eyes and a smug look. But there was nothing. Not even a purse snatcher.

He frowned, then set his shoulders and followed his friends.

 

* * *

 

The arcade was pretty cool, even if they did avoid all the usual games in favour of the more active ones. After a couple of hours, Peter mentally declared it a success.

Aside from laser-tag (which, as it turned out, Luke _sucked_ at), they also played air-hockey (he had that in the bag), virtual sledding, some kind of Resident Evil knock-off, a couple racing games, even DDR (weirdly, Sam was the best at that. No one asked.). Luke actually admitted to enjoying himself after a while, and aside from his mouth phrasing things kind of weirdly on occasion (‘Hah! I totally pressed the right combination of buttons more efficiently than you did!’ instead of ‘Hah! Totally kicked your butt!’ came to mind), Peter could almost forget his little honesty problem.

And then they broke for lunch, and Peter’s cell phone rang. He frowned as he checked it, then frowned even deeper when he saw it was Mary-Jane. Probably the worst person to talk to without the ability to lie. But also the worst person to try and avoid – she would not be letting him forget it if he tried to ignore her.

“Hey, MJ. MJ, hi,” he said, grimacing at Luke and Sam and slipping out of the burger line. “How’s school?”

“ _Don’t you ‘how’s school’ me!_ ” she snapped. “ _You’re playing hooky?_ You _?_ ”

“Oh, come on, Mary-Jane, this is hardly the first time I’ve skipped class,” he pointed out, hurrying toward the entrance.

“ _That’s so not the point. And even if it was, you don’t usually take the whole day unless it’s like, picture day, or something. You could have at least told me and Harry._ ”

“People don’t usually advertise when they’re skipping class to play video games,” he said. “I’m just hanging out with Luke and Sam, what’s the big deal?”

“ _Of course you don’t get it,_ ” she said. “ _I swear, Peter, for someone so smart, you can be so incredibly thick sometimes._ ”

“What?”

“ _When you went out, skipped on your own time, that was fine, we got it. It was time for you to clear your head. But this? I mean, it’s great you got new friends and all, but could you try not to rub it in our faces all the time?_ ”

He blinked, not following at all. “I’m not following you at all.”

“ _Me and Harry? We barely get to see you in school. And now you’re skipping an entire day of it to hang out with your new friends? Are you_ trying _to be a jerk?_ ”

“That – that’s not what this is!” he cried. “Mary-Jane, you and Harry, you – you guys mean the world to me! Today, I – I didn’t get much of a choice about this! I’d much rather be hanging out with you guys, honest!”

Huh. Again, something he’d thought, but nice to get the confirmation.

“ _And yet you’re not. You know, when Harry told me he was worried you only stuck around him because he was nice to you, not because you liked him, I told him he was being ridiculous. That even though you’d gone out, bulked up, got this whole new attitude, deep down, you were still you. That you were still the guy we’d wanted to hang out with all those years ago. I’m starting to think maybe I was wrong. Maybe you have changed._ ”

No. It was a simple word to say. One syllable. Two letters. A statement to indicate disagreement. You would not think it was that hard to say.

“Yeah, but – I mean, it – Mary-Jane, it’s not like that! And I didn’t ‘go out and bulk up’.” Natural spider-muscle combined with nightly crime-fighting. It’ll do that. “Come on, Mary-Jane, listen to me. I am not trying to get rid of you guys. I still want to be your friend, more than anything aside from a lot of other stuff—” Oh, god, please let her be too mad to actually be listening to what he was saying. “—but I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now, and my team – I mean, Luke, Sam, Ava and Danny –”

“ _Your team?_ ” she repeated. “ _What do you mean,_ _your_ team _?_ ”

“I – I am almost positive it is not what you think,” he said. Which was true only because he had no idea what she thought he meant. “I have to focus on them right now, more than you and Harry, because they’re –” He stopped himself, spinning around to make sure Sam and Luke weren’t listening in. He couldn’t see them, but he still lowered his voice and moved faster for the exit. “They’re my responsibility right now.”

“ _And we’re not? We’re your friends, Peter. You have a responsibility to us, too._ ”

“Not like this.”

“ _Really? Well, if that’s how you feel, then maybe you could do with a little less responsibility. Maybe finish lightening your load with us._ ”

“Mary-Jane, wait, I –” But she was already gone. He pulled his phone away from his ear to check, and bit back the urge to yell at his homescreen.

“Oh, my, that didn’t sound pleasant at all.”

He then resisted the urge to pitch his phone at Loki’s head, instead turning around to glare at the skateboarder currently lounging against the wall behind him. Black hair, green eyes, smug smile, and unfortunately surrounded by a lot of people who would probably call for the police if a high school kid playing hooky punched him through a wall.

“And you know, I think the best part about it is that it probably would have happened even if you could lie right now,” he continued brightly. “So it was just my luck I happened to be passing by in time to hear it! How wonderful to know you’re perfectly capable of ruining your own life without me having to do anything. It really is quite a load off my mind.”

“I am not at all pleased to hear that,” he ground out. “And I really wish I could use sarcasm because wow, would you be getting a lot of it if I could.”

“Yet another plus for me!” Loki said cheerfully. “So, since that little debacle didn’t have anything to do with my present, how are you finding the honest life? Please do say you’ve slipped up and told somebody important about your little spider problem.”

“Get this thing out of me,” he demanded, pointing at his chest. “It’s not doing anything for you!”

“On the contrary,” he said. “It’s frustrating you horribly, I can tell. And let me assure you, that is doing wonders for my mood. First, you were just obnoxious and lucky. Then, you were a pig, obnoxious, and lucky. Then you were a child, particularly obnoxious, and lucky. And I have yet to defeat you. Now, you’re just you. And very unlucky, it seems. It’s really quite satisfying.”

“The next time I see you in costume, I’m doing my best to put you through a wall,” he promised, but Loki just smiled benignly.

“Because that will do so much to get Foresti’s Choker from your heart.”

“I’ll enjoy it anyway.”

“Hm… oh, well, it seems I must dash. Brothers to avoid and all that,” he said, glancing at the sky. “But before I go, might I just ask one last question?”

“I’m pretty sure you can,” he said, half because it was ‘obnoxious’ (as Loki called him), and half because his attempted ‘no, you can’t’ changed as it came out of his mouth.

“When you said ‘I’d much rather be hanging out with you guys, honest’,” It was incredibly creepy to hear his own voice coming out of Loki’s mouth, by the way, “did you really mean you prefer spending time with your other friends than these two?”

Peter automatically opened his mouth to answer, but that spider-common-sense kept him from actually saying anything. At least, not without turning around. And considering that if Luke and Sam were there, the damage had probably already been done, he wasn’t going to turn around. Instead, he just glowered as Loki smiled over his shoulder.

“Food for thought, boys. Ta-ta!”

And with nothing much else to do, Peter turned and met Sam’s hurt gaze and Luke’s carefully blank one.

“So… am I going to be able to get away with ‘that was not what it sounded like’?” he asked.

“Take a wild guess,” Luke replied, and he nodded.

“Yeah, I figured. You know, ‘prefer’ is such a specific word…”

It pretty much went downhill from there.

 

* * *

 

“For the record, Fury, I’m pretty sure this is one of the many reasons why I’m a terrible leader.”

Considering he was face-down on the team’s briefing table, Spider-man couldn’t see Fury’s sympathetic expression, and chances were that if he’d been upright, he wouldn’t have seen it either.

“Kid, you’re talking to someone who had made a career out of lying to people. That statement ain’t gonna fly with me.”

Spider-man lifted his head so his chin was on the table instead, and sure enough, Fury was back to being cold and poker-faced. “Okay, Fury. Tell me then, how do I stop my team from hating me now?”

He didn’t even blink. “And now you’re talking to someone who has made a management career out of his staff knowing he’s manipulating their every thought and movement. You are having the wrong conversation here.”

“Also for the record, this is not helping my current situation,” he said, and then sat up. He stared at the centre of the table for a few moments, then turned his hands palm-up to look at them; at the way the material clung to his wrists and spread over his hands. It had taken him weeks to perfect the costume. Weeks in the wrestling ring, learning how to fight, while at home his aunt and uncle worried about what was going on in his head. Weeks of learning how to lie.

Almost a year and a half later, and lying had become second-nature. He hadn’t been kidding—hadn’t been able to kid—when he said he’d built two personalities out of it. Two personalities his team had come to trust and rely on. And now they knew those personalities for what they were.

He clenched his fists. “Fury, I don’t think I can do this.”

“Honesty?”

“Lead the team,” he corrected, and raised his head to meet his gaze. “I don’t think I can lead your team. Not anymore.”

For a long time, Fury just stared back at him, that odd expression he sometimes wore on the edge of his glare playing in his eye. It had become more frequent over time – seen on those rare occasions he gifted Spider-man with a compliment, or worse – when he actually seemed concerned. It always made Spider-man nervous, but right now, he was too busy hating himself.

Eventually, Fury pressed something on his glove, and it was only due to the silence of the room that Spider-man heard something in the walls whir, and the hidden camera in the corner shut down. He looked at it warily, but immediately snapped back when Fury sat down opposite him.

This was getting weird.

“I tell you when you’re being an idiot, kid, but this time I want you to know I’m being sincere,” he said evenly. “You are a leader. Whether you know it or not. You’re a good leader, and you’re teaching your team more than you know. _Don’t_ go mouthing off!” he added, and Spider-man bit back the teasing remark he’d been seconds from making. Fury waited to be sure, then continued. “And you’re right. This sort of situation can break even the best of teams, let alone one as fresh as yours. But it can also define the sort of hero you want to be.”

“I think that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” he asked darkly. “Me, as a hero? I’m a liar by nature.”

“That may be so. But some of the best heroes are.”

“Yeah, right,” he snapped. “Tony Stark? Barely bothered with a secret identity for a week. The Fantastic Four – everyone knew who they were from the moment their rocket exploded! And don’t even get me started on Captain America!”

“The X-Men.”

“Are all part of Xavier’s school for the gifted, everyone knows that!” he cried. “All I’d need is a school roster and I could name every single one of them.”

“Me.”

Spider-man barely kept himself from surging forward, but couldn’t keep his hand from slamming against the table. “Anti-hero. At best.”

“A fair assessment,” he acknowledged. “Now allow me to return the favour. The Fantastic Four are one another’s loved ones – they keep each other safe. Tony Stark, at the time of his announcement, was a self-absorbed alcoholic with limited ability to care for others on a personal level. Captain America left his family and friends behind over seventy years ago. The X-Men are mutants, feared and reviled even when they aren’t wearing masks. Hell, some of them put the mask on just for the chance of being seen any other way.”

Spider-man slowly lowered his eyes back to his hands. Aunt May… Mary-Jane, Harry…

“And just because I don’t do anything about your little PR problem doesn’t mean I don’t know how long J Jonah Jameson’s been telling the New York public what a menace you are. But you still go out there and put on the mask. And for what?”

He shook his head, wanting so badly to say he didn’t know. But he did know. Power, responsibility… all that jazz. And because he wanted to make Ben proud. And… and he wanted to help people. Yeah… that sounded about right. He wanted to help people.

 “There are a million kinds of heroes in the world, kid,” Fury continued. “Almost as many kinds of leaders. Now, I’m not saying you can’t be like the Cap. He’s good, honest, nineteen-forties, all American kumbay-hoo-hah and for reasons unknown to me, people trust that. They’ll follow it. You could be like me, take and make the lies, do whatever it takes to get the job done. I make no secret of what I can and will do, and people follow me because they know I’m doing it for the right reasons.”

“But you _use_ people,” he said, before he could stop himself. “You use everyone, like they’re tools – like they don’t matter, in the end, when –”

“That’s because to me, in the end, they don’t matter,” he said coldly. “Everyone’s replaceable, kid. Even you. All that matters is the mission.”

He looked up again, too emotionally drained to object. “I don’t want to do that, Fury. I don’t even want to think I can.”

“No. Because you’re a different kind of hero. You’re the wildcard. You don’t care about the master plan, or truth and justice. You care about what’s right. Tell me honestly, kid: if I told you there was an alien race invading and I needed someone to stop them, meanwhile there had been a tsunami in New York and we hadn’t had time to evacuate. Where would you be?”

Spider-man closed his eyes. “I’d stay in New York.”

“Damn straight you would. And you know Tony Stark wouldn’t say the same.”

“I don’t… I’m not sure I get what you’re getting at,” he said. “The world needs small-time heroes?”

“The world needs heroes that think about small-time problems,” he corrected. “You’re never going to be a Captain America, Spider-man. And I hope to high-heaven that you’ll never be me, because that’s when I know we’re all doomed. But big-time or not, liar or not, people need heroes like you. People _believe_ in heroes like you.”

“Thanks for the pep-talk,” he said, trying for nonchalance, “but that doesn’t help the fact that my team thinks I dislike all of them.”

“Then it was a wake-up call that you all needed,” he said. “You can’t do what you do without lying. Not with the skill you do it. And you can’t be a real leader to your team unless they know how you work. And besides, last I checked, you weren’t doing this to be liked.”

Spider-man could only stare at him for a few moments, then sighed and nodded. “No. That’s not why I’m doing any of this.”

"Then take this for what it is, and let's deal with the problem in front of us."

...

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the 48, which is my collection of unfinished and pointless fics. This one hasn't been touched for a few months, probably a couple of years since anything more than edits were done to it. It is posted here for people's interest, and in case anyone would like to adopt it. I hope you enjoyed!


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